Page:The invasion of the Crimea vol. 2.djvu/60

 30 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND CHAP, colleague, and, along with that also, the thought - of what might be his strength as an adversary, broke in upon the minds of the Cabinet Ministers still remaining under Lord Aberdeen ; and they, some of them, likewise perceived that his with- drawal had destroyed the equilibrium hitherto maintained in a Government formed by coalition. These last members of the Cabinet, with the assent of some of their colleagues, effected, as it were, an insurrection against the power which had driven Lord Palmerston from office. They urged his restoration ; and to the grievous mortification of those who had compassed his fall, it proved on the whole impracticable to resist their demand. Lord Palmerston, I believe, took no part in pre- paring the counter-movement which thus over- came his assailants, and at first, perhaps, knew nothing of it ; * but, when the progress of the measure was at length made known to him, he did not thwart its completion. Liking work in the public service, and desiring, of course, so session of 1854) ; and in his month the exphmation was a fair one, because the 'difference' in question had been brandished .ngainst liim in such way as to compel him to retire from the Government. (See Lord Palmerston's letters in Mr Evelyn Asliley's book.) But in the midst of those anxious December (lays wlieii England was fast driving towards war, liow came it to happen that a ' difference' on the then liat subject of poor old ' Reform ' was so used as to become the means of driving Lord Palmerston from office ? Thai is the step of which I say in the text that the 'grounds are withheld.' Palmerston had himself originated the movement for effecting bis restoration to office, but my information does not warrant me in acceding to His Koyal Iliglincss's idea.
 * The Prince Consort writes as though he believed that Lord